


If Guilt's In That Heart

by glittercracker



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittercracker/pseuds/glittercracker
Summary: The red behind Kurapika’s eyes deepened, until it was the pulsing red of a heart, something wet and hot and visceral, and there was nothing he’d ever wanted more in his life than to surrender to it, to let Leorio take him however he chose to. “I love you,” he heard himself murmur.And a moment from touching him where Kurapika most wanted him to,neededhim to, Leorio stopped. They paused there for a suspended moment, and then Leorio took his hand out of Kurapika’s boxers, and placed it on one side of his face, his other hand on the other. They were gentle, but firm, and Kurapika felt the cold, shipwreck sensation again in his guts. But he opened his eyes. He knew that there was no other choice.





	If Guilt's In That Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BugTongue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/gifts).



> A prompt from a dream from BugTongue...a challenge I couldn't resist! Enjoy, angel!

Kurapika felt like he was choking. The sickly-sweet smell of the Easter lilies lining every available surface, the smoke from the censers over the altar, the heat of so many closely-packed bodies on an unseasonably warm spring morning were bad enough. The very fact that he was in a church at all was worse: not that he minded the buildings in and of themselves. In fact he rather enjoyed their whispering half-silence when they were empty. But he hated the sanctimonious sound of most every Christian priest’s voice he had ever heard, and this particular priest on this particular morning also happened to be indicting him on the brutal murder of a kindly, elderly philanthropist.

Of course, the priest didn’t know that the rampaging, murderous monster he was describing was Kurapika, or that the philanthropist hadn’t been quite as angelic as he seemed. Nevertheless, he was whipping the congregation into a frenzy, raining down scathing condemnation on anyone who would do such a thing, particularly in the early hours of Easter morning. 

Leorio, wedged into the stifling pew beside Kurapika, was no exception. In fact, he was seething, muttering curses under his breath, despite being firmly entrenched in a house of worship. He wasn’t the only one. A sea of whispers rose around Kurapika with the sickening smell of the lilies and the scented smoke, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes fixed composedly on the altar with its (ironically) gory paintings of a crucified god, and pretend that none of this mattered to him.

Eventually, the priest moved on from his hellfire sermon, though the congregation kept muttering through the rest of the service, which Kurapika more or less managed to tune out. But he was well aware that he hadn’t heard the end of the matter. By the look on Leorio’s face – rigid fury – he was going to be hearing a _lot_ more about it; and he was here for another week, which he had intended to spend on pleasanter pastimes. Now, that was probably out of the question. Because if Leorio was this worked up about the murder, and he found out that it had been Kurapika’s doing… 

He sighed. He couldn’t figure out how all of these people were so perfectly fooled. It hadn’t been difficult to dig up a truckload of dirt on this Acosta guy, and he hadn’t even been looking for it – it had more or less fallen into his lap when he’d been researching the eyes, which was all the dirt he needed. Then again, when money was flying, people tended not to look too hard at the source. Kurapika could only hope that he was wrong, and Leorio’s outrage would burn out quickly. 

However, as the tedious service finally ended, and everyone stood and began to file out, Leorio already had his phone out, searching the news for more information about the murder. “Jesus Christ,” he said, scrolling through pictures of the crime scene with which Kurapika was intimately familiar, “what kind of sick bastard would do something like this?” Without giving Kurapika time to answer, he continued, “Caesar Acosta was a goddamned saint!” 

Given Leorio’s mood, Kurapika felt it was prudent not to point out that this was an oxymoron. But he had to say something, because Leorio clearly expected agreement. “I thought you didn’t trust the inordinately wealthy,” he said, trying to feel out exactly how invested Leorio was in the public outrage.

Leorio continued to walk for a few moments, still utterly absorbed in his phone. Then, shaking his head, he put it back in his pocket. “I’m sorry, Kurapika. First I drag you to church, and then I drag you into a local drama. And you only just got here…and I promised you brunch, didn’t I?” 

“I believe you did,” Kurapika answered, finally meeting his eyes. “But if you’d rather not, in light of – ”

“No, no, absolutely not! You’re here for barely a week, and I’m not going to spend it with my face buried in my phone!”

_Thank whatever god we were just praying to,_ Kurapika thought, but he kept his expression neutral. “So where are we going? For brunch, I mean?” He tried to sound enthusiastic, although he was absolutely certain that wherever they went, talk of the poor sainted Caesar Acosta’s murder would be the only thing they would hear. Which, frankly, made him want to be sick, never mind trying to force down food. Particularly when he thought about the eyes. _No, he was not going to think about the eyes…_ He took a deep breath, and let it out as they emerged from the church’s twilight into a sear of spring sunshine.

The cathedral was in the center of town, and there was no shortage of places to eat nearby. Leorio seemed to be on a mission, however, and he led them straight to a tiny restaurant with white stucco walls and sage-green trim. Given the line that had already formed by the hostess’s stand, Kurapika had his doubts about them finding a table, but the woman – tall, attractive, with long black hair and wide black eyes – took one look at Leorio, grabbed two menus and gestured to them to jump the line.

Ignoring irritated looks and muttered curses; Kurapika followed Leorio, who followed the hostess, who was, of course, lamenting Acosta. She proceeded to seat them at a table in a small, relatively quiet corner of the restaurant, which made the newly-revived anger on Leorio’s face all the worse. Because this was exactly the kind of setting Kurapika had been imagining when he _finally_ broached the topic he’d been mulling over for far too long. 

Telling Leorio how he felt about him was, in fact, a substantial part of the reason why he’d arranged to spend Leorio’s Easter break from medical school with him. It was also a topic which was now clearly off the cards for the day and possibly permanently. Because if Leorio really was taking the old man’s murder to heart, what would he do if he learned that it had been Kurapika’s doing? Would he even give him a chance to explain before he threw him out onto the street, told him he never wanted to see him again? 

“I just can’t believe – ” Leorio began again, and then, looking up at Kurapika, he said, “Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“You don’t have to stop talking about it on my account,” Kurapika said, pretending to peruse the menu, though he didn’t register any of what he was reading.

“No, really, I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s such a shock. If you’d known this guy…”

_But I did know him,_ Kurapika thought. _As much as I needed to know him. It’s you who didn’t know him at all._ Swallowing a pang of betrayal that he knew full well was irrational, Kurapika risked a look up at Leorio – and then he had a terrible thought. “Was Acosta a personal friend of yours?” he asked carefully.

“No,” Leorio sighed. “I only met him once, and that was only for a few minutes. But he was, well, a local celebrity. His money built the kids’ club in my neighborhood when I was little, and so many other things like that. Just – who would do something like this?”

Kurapika studied Leorio’s face for a moment, wondering how far to push this. If he told him the truth straight out, he didn’t think Leorio would believe him. But he also didn’t think that he could stand a week of this kind of lamenting. So he settled for: “Maybe he was hiding something.” Hearing his own words, the feeling of betrayal redoubled – because now he was playing into it. 

Leorio frowned. “I know that your line of work can make you jaded, Kurapika, but not _everyone_ is concealing a sordid secret life.”

Kurapika sighed. “Maybe not. But my line of work has also offered fairly convincing proof that rich people who are murdered brutally generally are.” Seeing Leorio’s expression darken, Kurapika said, “But maybe we _should_ agree not to talk about this? At least until more of the story comes out?” And maybe it would. Maybe someone would speak the truth before Kurapika had to. That, though, he suspected, was too much to hope for. He didn’t tend to be lucky.

Leorio blinked at him for a moment, and then he smiled. It was forced, but still, Kurapika was grateful for it. “Okay,” Leorio said. “You’re right. I mean, I invited you here, and it wasn’t to drag you down with local tragedies. Anyway, brunch is on me. Order anything you want.”

Kurapika sighed internally, and forced himself to read the menu. He was still so wound up from what he’d found in Acosta’s library that he didn’t know if he would be able to eat, but he knew that he had to try. Soup, he thought distractedly. He could just about imagine swallowing soup and bread. So when the waitress arrived – another dark-haired beauty, smiling lavishly at Leorio until she noticed Kurapika’s cold, narrowed eyes – he ordered the soup of the day. Tomato and something he couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered.

“That’s all?” Leorio asked.

Kurapika shrugged. “You know I’m never very hungry after travelling.”

Leorio looked at him over the frames of his glasses: the first hard look he’d given Kurapika since he arrived at his flat, post-mission, in the early hours of the morning. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Kurapika said, making himself meet Leorio’s eyes.

Leorio tilted his head slightly, studying him. “You look tense.”

This time Kurapika’s stomach constricted doubly hard. He didn’t know whether Leorio was seeing the effects of one secret, the other, or both, but none of it was anywhere that he wanted to go at the moment. Acosta’s death was positively off-limits. The other one, the secret he’d intended to be telling right now, was distinctly off-limits by virtue of the first.

“It…was a hard trip,” Kurapika heard himself say. He didn’t even sound convincing to himself. 

Leorio rested his chin on his palm, his elbow on the table. “I’ve known you for years, Kurapika. Hard trips hardly rattle you, never mind make you hang onto a menu like it’s a lifeline.”

Kurapika looked at his white-knuckled hands clutching the menu, and then set it down. Then, because he couldn’t bear (or uphold) a complete evasion, he said, carefully schooling his voice not to shake, “I located another pair of eyes.”

Leorio shot upwards, his back suddenly straight and his arms crossed on the table. Then he leaned towards Kurapika, his jaw tight and his eyes intent. “What? _Here?”_

Kurapika nodded, sipping his water. 

“Where? Do you have a plan? Do you need help?”

Kurapika almost choked on his water, although really, he ought to have expected this. “No. Please, no. It’s under control.”

Leorio continued to scrutinize him for another moment, and then he sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. “So that’s why you agreed to come.”

Kurapika had to use every ounce of his self-control not to slam down the glass he was holding, not to inhale the water in his mouth into his lungs. He swallowed deliberately, and then he said, “No. That isn’t why I agreed to come.” He held Leorio’s eyes, which were now swarming with unreadable emotion. “I came because you asked me to.”

Leorio tilted his head again, studying his friend. “Not because you wanted to?”

“I wanted to,” Kurapika said after a moment, feeling himself begin to blush, hating his fair skin for betraying him.

Leorio quirked a half-smile. “Well that’s some good news, anyway.”

Kurapika thought that he would be eternally grateful to the beautiful waitress, despite her making eyes at Leorio, for appearing at exactly that moment with their food. Kurapika spared a quick glance at Leorio’s plate, which held an elaborate array of what must be local delicacies. Then he looked down at his soup bowl, dipping the spoon into the red liquid and trying not to think of the crimson sprays of blood left all over the cream-colored carpet in Acosta’s hidden library. Because that made him think of scarlet eyes, and scarlet eyes made him think of corpses in a forest clearing, the utter, bloodied silence of a people’s complete obliteration. In retrospect, eggs might have been a better choice.

They ate for a few silent moments, Kurapika forcing his mind to blankness to get the food down, until he registered that Leorio was speaking again. “Pardon?” he said, looking up.

“I…” Leorio began, and then looked down again at his plate, although he’d set the cutlery aside. “I missed you,” he said in a low voice.

Kurapika blinked, stifling a bitter laugh. Of course. Of course Leorio would say this _now,_ give him this opening when he couldn’t possibly accept it. “That’s natural, isn’t it?” Kurapika asked carefully, looking at a spoon full of soup that he didn’t know what to do with. “We don’t see each other often.”

“Kurapika,” Leorio sighed, leaning forward again. “You know what I mean.”

Kurapika blinked down at the soup for another moment, and then he set the spoon back in the bowl. He looked up at Leorio. “Yes,” he said, the word full of weight and oblique emotion. “I think I do.”

“Because last time we saw each other – ” Leorio’s voice was barely audible, but his eyes were intent.

“I know,” Kurapika said, wishing that the images filling his mind now were memories of those few, precious days Leorio was talking about, and not of his chained hand slashing a wrinkled throat with a dull knife. Not the lashings of crimson on a white dress shirt as the man looked up at him in shock. And certainly not the crystal vessel housing two scarlet eyes with patches of discoloration in the irises and misshapen, milky-pink pupils that Kurapika had wrenched from its gilded display case before he stepped over the stiffening body.

When Kurapika came back to the present, he saw that Leorio was still watching him intently, but now the corners of his mouth angled downward, and his eyes were poised to hurt. “If you don’t want me to talk about it, I won’t. Ever again. We can pretend it never – ”

“No!” Kurapika said sharply, and then he had to curb the rising emotion quickly, before his own eyes changed and garnered unwanted attention. “I would never want you to pretend that,” he said more calmly. 

“So you don’t regret it?” Leorio asked, his tone almost shy – although he certainly hadn’t been shy during those handful of days he was talking about. 

And finally, those memories eclipsed the ones of the dying Acosta, and the appalling treasure Kurapika had killed him for possessing. Instead, he saw Leorio with his head thrown back on a crisp white sheet, cheeks flushed and eyes closed, dark eyelashes painting half-moons over his sharp cheekbones as Kurapika’s hands moved downward over the silky skin of his hips. He heard Leorio whimper his name as he drew back and looked at the purpling mark his teeth had left on Leorio’s shoulder. 

Kurapika felt a flush rising on his cheeks again, red invading his vision. He swallowed hard. “No, I don’t regret it,” he said, once again measuring his words carefully. 

“Because we never talked about it,” Leorio said, long fingers fidgeting with his glass, “and I mean, we probably should have, but – ”

“Leorio,” Kurapika said, tone soft but also weighty. Leorio’s fingers only moved more distractedly over the glass’s base, until Kurapika took them and placed his own hands over them on the tablecloth, stilling them. “I do not regret it,” he said, letting each word fall slowly, like pebbles in a pool. 

Leorio studied him for a moment longer, and then he laced his fingers through Kurapika’s, and smiled. Kurapika’s chest constricted with an equal mix of longing and guilt, because he wanted what that smile promised, and yet how in good conscience could he let himself have it while consciously deceiving Leorio? 

Even as he thought it, though, he felt his resolve weakening. If he hadn’t been so undone by what he’d taken from Acosta’s library, he might have been able to face telling Leorio the truth before this went any farther – to make that gamble. But not now. Not with _that_ particular set of scarlet eyes burning through their black silk shroud in a corner of his bag. And so, half-hating himself for it, he smiled back.

“Should we get this to go?” Leorio asked, glancing down at the food they’d barely touched.

“That might be wise,” Kurapika answered, “given that that waitress is giving me a distinctly murderous look.”

Leorio raised his eyebrows, glanced at the waitress, who was indeed looking daggers in their direction, and then let go of one of Kurapika’s hands to gesture to her. But he kept tight hold of the other one as she approached, for which Kurapika couldn’t help feeling mildly gleeful, despite everything. 

“Is there a problem?” she asked curtly, staring pointedly at their clasped hands.

“Something’s come up,” Leorio said, his eyes sparkling with humor, and it was all Kurapika could do not to smile at the terrible innuendo. “So could we take this with us?”

“Of course,” the waitress almost snarled, snatching dishes and hurrying away.

“Do you suppose she’ll put poison in it?” Kurapika asked, watching her stalk off toward the kitchen. 

“No. Amelie has a temper, but no homicidal streak, as far as I know.”

Kurapika narrowed his eyes. “Amelie? And just how well _do_ you know her?”

Leorio laughed. “Why? Jealous?”

“I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

“Hmm, you are,” Leorio smirked. “But the answer is, I don’t know her at all – though not for her lack of trying to know _me.”_

Kurapika rolled his eyes. “Don’t sound so pleased with yourself. It isn’t flattering.” 

“Why wouldn’t I be pleased with myself?” Leorio asked, one of his hands dipping under the table to run a teasing finger up Kurapika’s thigh. He chuckled when Kurapika’s eyes flew open wide. “I just got you to agree to ditch lunch and come home with me.”

“I would have been coming home with you either way, Leorio. I’m staying with you. And _put your hand back in plain sight before you cause a scene!”_ he hissed.

Leorio laughed again, but replaced his hand on the table just as the waitress dumped a bag between them, narrowly missing their joined hands. She dropped a bill beside it, and Leorio started to call her back, credit card in hand. Kurapika, however, didn’t want to spend a moment longer in that restaurant: it wasn’t just the waitress who was casting chilly glances at them now. So he pulled several bills from his pocket – much more money than was needed, even with a generous tip – set them on the bill, and then stood up and led the way out of the restaurant. 

Once they were out on the street again, Kurapika’s roiling emotions settled a bit. They walked up the main thoroughfare, decorated for the holiday with flowers and ribbons. Then they turned away from the larger streets, twisting and winding their way into ever-more-tightly-packed neighborhoods, Kurapika’s heart beginning to beat hard. It was now or never – tell Leorio the truth or follow him to bed – and he didn’t know how to make that decision. He wasn’t even sure anymore whether or not he was capable. All too soon they reached Leorio’s apricot-colored building with its peeling green shutters. Leorio unlocked the front door, and they climbed the stairs, Kurapika’s heart slamming in his chest. Leorio undid the three locks on the door of his flat, and then pushed it open. 

_Make a decision, Kurapika!_ his mind was screaming at him as he followed Leorio inside. And then it was too late: before he could register what was happening, Leorio had dropped the bag from the restaurant, pushed him up against the door he’d kicked shut, and kissed him hungrily. For a moment Kurapika only stood, stunned, letting Leorio kiss him, his mind seared blank by shock and unexpected pleasure. And then he relaxed, shut his eyes, and began to kiss Leorio back, physical sensation eclipsing mental turmoil. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been when Leorio finally pulled away, his arms still wound tightly around Kurapika’s waist, Kurapika’s around his neck, and both of them breathing hard. “I’m sorry,” Leorio said. “I should have asked you first – ”

“Yes, you should have,” Kurapika said sternly. “But,” he continued, softening, “I think we both know that I could have kicked your ass in seven different directions if I’d taken offense.”

“So we’re good?” Leorio said, speaking into his hair at the crown of Kurapika’s head, where he’d buried his lips.

“We’re good,” Kurapika breathed against Leorio’s neck, refusing to let himself think about anything else.

“And…do you want to talk before anything else…ah…”

Kurapika nipped him through his shirt. “No. I do not particularly want to talk.”

Leorio bent down, kissed Kurapika gently on his parted lips, and then scooped him into his arms. A flash of the church’s strangling, smoky-sweet darkness strobed through Kurapika’s mind, along with the image of Leorio’s outraged face, and guilt buried itself in his guts like a shipwreck. But it was a quick, dark streak against the red that was filling the dark behind his closed eyes, because Leorio’s mouth was back on his, and desire blotted out everything else. _I’ll tell him,_ he thought. I _will_ tell him… 

But by then Leorio had laid him on the bed, gently, almost reverently, and now he was unbuttoning his shirt, kissing his neck, and Kurapika couldn’t think beyond that. Leorio tugged at his suit jacket, and Kurapika shrugged it off, and then pulled Leorio’s off too, deftly unbuttoning his shirt as Leorio worked his way up Kurapika’s jaw with tiny nips. They shed their shirts, Kurapika sliding his hands up Leorio’s waist to his chest, and then to his shoulders, fingers digging into them as Leorio sucked hard at the hollow of his throat. Kurapika moaned softly, and Leorio reached for the button of his pants, shedding them, and then did the same with his own. 

He rolled onto his side then, pulling Kurapika with him so that they faced each other, their bodies pressed together, legs tangled, their faces inches apart. Kurapika’s vision was red, the way it usually was in anger but also had proven to be the very few times he had experienced a feeling like the one that had overtaken him now. Lust, yes…except that that didn’t explain all of it. He had had his share of clandestine encounters, but this was something different, just as it had been the last time he was with Leorio. He found his eyes shutting involuntarily against the melting softness in Leorio’s.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Leorio whispered, touching his lips to Kurapika’s nose. “We don’t have to go any further than this if you don’t – ”

“I want to,” Kurapika said, his throat feeling like gravel, his pulse pounding as if it would burst from his body. “I want _you.”_

“Kurapika,” Leorio said, his voice like a cat’s purr. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” And he began to kiss him again: sweet, wet kisses down the length of his chest, and further. A tongue dipped into his navel, fingers under the band of his boxers.

The red behind Kurapika’s eyes deepened, until it was the pulsing red of a heart, something wet and hot and visceral, and there was nothing he’d ever wanted more in his life than to surrender to it, to let Leorio take him however he chose to. “I love you,” he heard himself murmur. 

And a moment from touching him where Kurapika most wanted him to, _needed_ him to, Leorio stopped. They paused there for a suspended moment, and then Leorio took his hand out of Kurapika’s boxers, and placed it on one side of his face, his other hand on the other. They were gentle, but firm, and Kurapika felt the cold, shipwreck sensation again in his guts. But he opened his eyes. He knew that there was no other choice.

“What did you just say?” Leorio asked, his eyes swarming again with emotions that Kurapika couldn’t begin to pick apart.

“I…I…” Kurapika began, stumbling, because he wanted nothing more than to say it again. Because he meant it, had felt it for so long. But in light of Leorio’s dismay – was it dismay? – the specter of Caesar Acosta’s library had risen again in his mind’s eye, blotting out the rest. The shelves that should have been full of books, filled instead with specimens of the rarest things on earth. Things too precious for any man to own; for any man to have come by remotely legally. And then, the worst of the lot, it its place of honor… _Stop it._

“I love you,” he repeated, knowing that it didn’t sound right.

Leorio looked at him for a moment longer, and then he shut his own eyes, and sighed. He let go of Kurapika’s face, rolled away from him, onto his back. “Why would you lie to me about that?” he asked, his voice low and scratchy and full of hurt. 

Kurapika felt like he’d taken a gut-punch. “You think I’m lying?”

Leorio blinked. The softness was gone from his eyes. If anything, they had grown wary, even distant. “I think…that that’s not the kind of thing you’d normally say. And since you’ve been all off since you got here, well – I don’t know what it means.” He stopped, took a deep breath, then continued, “Kurapika, is it the eyes? Are you planning something dangerous? Is _that_ why you wanted to do this with me, now?”

Kurapika looked at him for another moment, and then, to his utter mortification, he choked out a sob. He wanted to answer Leorio, wanted to say something that would tamp everything down, even if they couldn’t go back to where they had been a few minutes ago. Mostly, though, he wanted to run. He also wanted to do it with some measure of composure. Instead, he found himself crying harder: properly crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks and into the well-worn cotton of the duvet cover. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, let alone with such abandon. Had he ever? _Once before,_ his heart whispered. _Only once._

Leorio had sat up, and now he pulled Kurapika up with him, gathering him against his chest in wide, enveloping arms. “What is it, Kurapika? You’re scaring me! Please, say something!”

“You would hate me,” Kurapika said, his words muffled against Leorio’s chest. It wasn’t fair: he could hear Leorio’s heart, feel it beating against him, and it made his own race to catch up. But there was no point to it. There could never be, when Leorio had seen through him so clearly – when there was really no choice now but to tell him, or leave him.

“Hate you for what?” Leorio asked, furrows forming between his eyes.

Kurapika shoved himself away from Leorio with both hands, stood up on trembling legs. “It doesn’t matter. Just believe that you would, and let me go.”

“Let you _go?_ Go where? For how long?”

“It doesn’t matter where. And forever.” Kurapika had struggled into his pants, and was wrestling with the button. 

“Kurapika!” Leorio cried, getting to his feet and grabbing Kurapika’s hands as he reached for his shirt. “Wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say something to hurt you…but I did, and please, just don’t leave! I take it all back. Talk to me!”

“There isn’t anything to talk about,” Kurapika answered, wrenching the shirt away from Leorio and pulling it on. “This was just…I shouldn’t have come.” He pulled on his jacket and walked into the sitting room, bending to pick up his bag where it rested in a corner.

“Kurapika,” Leorio said, his voice utterly wretched. “Please! Don’t leave like this!”

“You’ll thank me for it, believe me,” Kurapika said, sparing Leorio one more miserable glance before he reached for the doorknob. 

“No!” Leorio grated out, throwing himself at the door and forcefully slamming it just as Kurapika opened it. “You are _not_ leaving like this.”

“Are you actually going to try to stop me?” Kurapika asked in a low, dangerous tone.

“Yes!” Leorio cried. “You don’t get to leave me again with no explanation! Why did you even come here, if that’s what you were going to do? I mean, even if it was just for the eyes, you haven’t had time to – ” Abruptly, he stopped, his eyes intent when he looked down at the canvas bag slung over Kurapika’s shoulder: the clear, weighty bulge in one corner. He stared at it for a moment, and then looked back up at Kurapika, whose eyes were still half-red and glazed with tears, no matter how he tried to force himself under control. “You already have them, don’t you?”

“Leorio – ”

“You have the eyes you came for. Don’t lie to me – at least give me that much.”

Kurapika let out a breath with which he’d meant to rid himself of tears, but instead, more came with it. “Yes. I have them.”

Leorio was silent for a moment. “And that means that…you got them before you got to my house.”

“Yes,” Kurapika said softly.

Leorio thought again for a moment before he said, “I’ve never seen you react like this to finding a pair of eyes.”

Kurapika couldn’t make himself answer. 

“Let me see them, Kurapika.”

Kurapika shook his head, clutched the bag in white fists. But he was too undone to fight Leorio when he reached for it, pried it away, set it carefully on the floor and opened it. He took out the black silk-wrapped parcel, and peeled the cloth away. Holding the crystal vessel up to the light, he studied it for several long moments, his expression darkening all the time.

“The irises and pupils are both damaged,” he said at last, quietly. “Probably from a degenerative condition. The pupils are also obfuscated.” He set the vessel back in the silk bag, covered it with careful, gentle hands. “These are Pairo’s eyes, aren’t they?”

Kurapika couldn’t answer. He bowed his head, watching tears drip from his chin to the floor. And all at once, his legs couldn’t support him anymore, and he felt himself sliding to the ground. A moment later, Leorio was beside him, pulling Kurapika into his lap and holding him tightly as he sobbed into his chest. For a moment, he let himself do this: be weak, take comfort from probably the only person who could offer him any measure of it. And then he remembered the rest, and he struggled free of Leorio’s arms.

“Kurapika,” Leorio cried, finally exasperated, “ _why_ won’t you let me help you?”

Slowly, Kurapika picked up the silk-wrapped jar and put it back in his bag, zipped the bag shut and clutched it in his lap. Then he looked up at Leorio, took a shuddering breath, and said, “As you said, I got them before I came here.”

“Okay…” Leorio said, and then waited for him to continue. 

“He had a library,” Kurapika said, barely above a whisper.

“What?” Leorio asked, his eyebrows drawing together. 

“Or…something like one. It was hidden behind a secret door, and there were shelves like you’d have in a library. But no books. Gems, fossils, preserved plants. And other things. Lots of skulls. Anatomical specimens in jars. Limbs of animals bordering on extinct. More than one living specimen in a cage. Most of those were among the last of their kind. And…these.” 

He clutched his bag, the memory of the moment he’d spotted the eyes incandescent in his mind. There they’d been, in a place of dubious honor, on their own dais, in their crystal cage, like so many others that Kurapika had retrieved over the years. But these were eyes that he could positively identify, when he could never know to whom the others had belonged. They were the last Kurta eyes he had met with his own before he left the village, and his people, not knowing that it would be forever.

Leorio was silent for a long moment. Then he said, his voice shaky, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Kurapika looked up slowly, met his eyes. “He may have been a philanthropist, Leorio. But he was also a collector, and a leader of a cult that uses some of these things as sacrifices. Offerings to demons, dark gods…whatever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he had Pairo’s eyes. And he meant to use them for something terrible. So I couldn’t let him live.” 

Leorio was staring at him, stunned. Kurapika shoved himself upright against the door, although his legs still felt ready to give way beneath him. He knew that he had to get out of that flat before Leorio’s anger had time to manifest, because he knew he couldn’t fight him. He reached out quickly for the door handle and pulled it open – but once again, Leorio was faster, snapping from his trance to slam the door shut, and throwing his large form against it for good measure.

“Let me go, Leorio,” Kurapika said with soft menace.

“Absolutely not,” Leorio said through clenched teeth, leaning his back against the door and folding his arms over his chest.

“You know what I did, now. If you aren’t going to hit me, then let me leave.”

“No,” Leorio said, his voice and eyes stubborn.

“Then just kill me, if that’s what you want,” Kurapika said, pressing his forehead against the wood of the door. “Because I won’t fight you.”

There was a long silence. Then, Leorio’s hand crept around Kurapika’s shoulders, and pulled him towards his chest, Kurapika struggling the whole while. “Don’t, just – don’t! Why would you – ”

“Because I love you, too, Kurapika,” Leorio said into his ear. 

Kurapika froze, unyielding in Leorio’s grasp, his tears stalled. “Leorio, do you understand what I just told you?”

“Yes,” Leorio said, without hesitation. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you loved that man! Everyone did!”

“Well it seems we were all wrong,” Leorio said.

“…You believe me?”

“Of course I believe you!” Leorio said without hesitation. 

“Leorio…” Kurapika said, the word wobbling horribly.

“Kurapika,” Leorio said, grasping both of his shoulders and forcing Kurapika to look at him. “I. Believe. You.”

Kurapika just stared at him, the words not registering.

Leorio was gripping him too hard. And yet, the fingers digging into him were somehow grounding for Kurapika. Leorio repeated: “I believe you.”

And once again, Kurapika’s legs were crumbling. By all the gods he’d ever known, he thought, what was wrong with him? He may have prayed to them all in the moment his ass hit the floor again, to spare him Death By Leorio…but then Leorio was folding him into his arms again. He was whispering things…not threats, but assurances. “It will be okay…it will be okay…it will be okay…” Like a mantra.

“But everyone thinks – ” Kurapika began, the words splintering. 

“I really don’t fucking care what everyone thinks,” Leorio said, leveling his eyes at Kurapika. “I know what _I_ think, and I think that you did what you had to do. I think that you judge people fairly. And so, if you thought Acosta had to die…then Acosta had to die.”

Kurapika blinked at him. “I…I just can’t…”

“Can’t what?” he asked softly, kissing Kurapika’s forehead.

“I can’t do _this!_ Not when I might have to hurt people that you love.”

“Kurapika. There are people who I love, but none who I love like I love you. So do what you will…but don’t leave me. Just please, don’t leave me again.”

Kurapika was silent for a long moment, but during that silence he relaxed, gradually, into Leorio’s arms. “If…if I stay,” he began, and then paused, and sighed. Leorio stroked a hand over his hair. “If I stay – you know that this will be an always thing, don’t you? I can’t stop being what I am. I can’t stop searching for the remains of my clan, and that will take any form that it has to.”

“I know that. I know who you are, and I accept it.”

Kurapika looked up, meeting Leorio’s eyes. His soft half-smile had crept back into them, curling around Kurapika’s heart just as Leorio’s arms curled around his body. He drew a deep breath. “Then…yes.”

“Yes?”

“I’ll stay. And Leorio…I did mean it. I love you.”

Leorio’s half-smile blossomed into a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> My first HxH fic. Judge me gently, but I would love comments! The title comes from this quote from Thomas Moore: "I know not, I ask not, if guilt ’s in that heart,  
> I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art."
> 
> Thanks to Scor, Akumeoi and Asterrat for betas/help.


End file.
